The
Man Who Loved Bicycles
For the bicycle possesses ethereality, it floats along on those gossamer
wheels that give themselves away only when they twinkle in the sun.Daniel Behrman's classic Memoirs of an Autophobe

You
and the Night and the KnobbiesIt was
pure adventure, dodging hidden branches and smelling hot summer chaparral
one minute, cool fingers of fog the next, rippling along in the zebra-lit
trails. It felt
like there was no one else on the whole planet as alive as we were.Jacquie Phelan finds
love under a full moon

It
Takes Two
We knew two people on one bike was against the law. We did not care.
We were in love. I was quite happy to be the back half, like a pantomime
horse.
Half a century later, and Rietta Loch still hasn't soloed.

Life
Cycle
If you're not already addicted it may be, that after the first few turns
of the cranks,
you will hear the call and, converted, at the end of your ride the sound
you'll hear is your own elemental heart applauding. Geoff
Maxted doesn't want to hear any excuses

Alfred
Jarry: a Cyclist on the Wild SideJarry soon
became notorious. He took, for example, to riding around Paris with
two revolvers tucked in his belt and a carbine across his shoulder. Some
say that
he fired off a revolver to warn people of his approach. Jim McGurn cycles the
left bank

Call
it SlaughterAn act
of political terrorism would be considered more remarkable,
more unusual than a road 'accident'. David's slaughter is an awful tragedy
but an unremarkable statistic, a small part of public life.Patrick Field pays tribute
to a lost friend

What
Goes Around
I didn't just want to cycle, I needed to cycle. I needed to spin and to
turn and to
twist and to roll with the wind. I needed to puff and to pant and to fly
and to float and to force my legs faster.Josie Dew grows weary without
wheels

Machines
have Feelings
If life and a whole teeming planet can start from a rock, you'd best treat
a machine
like a bicycle with respect. Who knows what transmission micrographs may
be
taking place in the dark, convoluted innards of an SA three-speed hub?Richard Ballantine
offers proof that your bike is alive

Highway
Code Words
There is a good feeling -- I would hesitate to use the word thrill, but
the feeling
is close to that -- to be derived from small acts of inconsequential disobedience
in which the only potential victim is yourself.
Robert Crampton civilly owns up to his disobedience

How
to Ride a Bike Forever
The first objects you'd grab if your house caught fire are probably the
old ones,
because they can't be replaced. Grow old with the best bike you can afford.
Grant Petersen cycles down from the mountain
with some choice commandments

Rip
Me, Gianna
Gianna dipped a giant popsicle stick into her jar of molten wax and honey,
then spread the goop on my left upper thigh. I laid back and savoured
the music, warmth, and fragrance. Then she pressed a 3-inch by
10-inch piece of cloth onto the cooling wax and ripped it off.Lee McCormack cheats
on his Lady Bic

US
vs UKThe English
language, as I'm sure you know, has always been influenced
by other languages -- French, Latin, Anglo Saxon, but more recently
we've seen a distressing influence back from the US. Chipps Chippendale
translates

Making
Waves
It is no longer assumed that two cyclists have something in common.
Even their love of cycling is not necessarily a common cause.
A half smile, a surly nod, or nothing at all:
It must be Steve Worland

Wave
Dynamics
What is with these guys? Are they refugees from the road, where etiquette
long has dictated that no friendly gesture go unpunished? Unlike other
trail users, I generally wave with all five fingers on a given
hand, and there are no pentagrams tattooed on my palms.Patrick O'Grady has a
few theories on trail etiquette

Fool
Crisis
This little local difficulty brought many benefits in its wake: primarily
clean air
and a little extra safety for the cyclists, youngsters and assorted mammals
forced to run the gauntlet of our roads on a daily basis. David Henshaw whittles the
Great British fuel
Crisis of 2000 down to size

By
the Seat of Their
Pants
I should have expected a country that largely dismisses cycling as a viable
mode
of transportation would fail to understand the subtlety of riding skills
that ultimately led to their plonking a man on the moon.Ever feel like you're flying when you ride your bike? John Stuart Clark
visits the birthplace of the Wright Brothers

Time's
Arrow
Things were, unsurprisingly, a little confusing. His relationships with
women, for
example. They'd start with acrimony and heartbreak, every moment protracted
agony. Then they'd become more comfortable and almost exciting, all the
way
up to the point where every moment was heart thumping anticipation. backwards things gets Ferrentino
Mike

Don't
Hurry; Be Happy
Look at you: veins bulging, eyes popping, mouth twisted open like a toddler's
in full howl.
The other day you leaned on the horn to warn us you were going to run
the red light,
and you did -- only to skid to a stop at the next red light a block away.
Richard Risemberg
counsels the man in the Beemer

The
Unspeakable in Pursuit of the Unseatable
All cyclists quickly make up their own bestiary. My own list of the most
hateful
drivers in London ends with one particular car, the Mercedes, since it
seems to
attract people not merely blind to bikes but homicidal towards them. Jeremy Paxman vs London motorists

A
Convivial Life
Illich's view of the world is often received as almost crazy. He once
said "I often have the
impression that the more traditionally I speak, the more radically alien
I become." Such
sentiments are often echoed by campaigners trying to convince technology-obsessed
audiences of the merits of that traditional form of transport, the bicycle.Edgar Newton examines
the life and thinking of Ivan Illich

Getting
Rid of Cyclists
Davis, California, where the tasteless American tomato was invented, also
invented
the bike lane in 1966 as a compromise between banning cyclists altogether
and having them swamp the streets to the discomfiture of drivers. Jeremy Parker serves
up a little history

Blindspot
I often wonder why one bumps into quite so many things when one is
driving a car. After all, most of us have two eyes and a brake pedal and
all we have to do is to drive slowly in a straight line between traffic
jams.The Grim Reaper
(as channelled through Tony Ambrose)
has some worrying news

NYPD
(Black and) Blue
Convinced at last that patience had ceased to be a virtue, he quieted
his assailant with
a smash on the head that took all the fight out of him until he was brought
before the judge
and fined. Like the other 'bicycle cops' this officer made a number of
arrests of criminals.Teddy's boys always got their man

Uncivilised
Pleasures
I can't tell you how much longer it now takes me to get to work because
I haven't bothered to time it. The only near miss has been with a deer.Carvel Lonsdale commutes
via Walden Pond

Cycling
as Viewed in Literature
When James Starrs surveyed cycling in literature in The Noiseless Tenor,
he considered that his "selections are paeans, some simple, some lofty,
but all singing
the praises of the bicycle." Are they all? Just how does literature describe
cycling?John Forester hits
the books

Come
and Get Me, Officer
I observed that they were all extremely fat. I observed that their car
was effectively
just as wedged in as they had been, until recently, in their comfortable
seats. So I swung
the bike around, sped off down the hill and left them clutching just a
cheerful expletive. Robert Baker, professional middle class scofflaw

Call
That Cycling?
Sweating and breathless, I muttered angrily about the futility of it all.
Skinny riders
overtook me regularly, looking like gaudy caterpillars curled round their
twiggy machines.
My bike wanted to be ridden, I could feel that, but my lungs had other
ideas.
Helen Curtis prefers the taste of tarmac to trail

Real
Mountain Bikers Wear Skirts
Immediately after impact, I jumped up and instinctively lunged to my bike's
side
with apologies and words of ardor, promising her those shocks she so mournfully
stared at in Gunner's Cycle. I looked skyward, proclaimed my sins, and
wept.
Saddled with some maternal-type inclinations

Why
has Everyone Got It In for Cyclists?What strange
double standards we have when chauffeurs can wait for hours, their engines
filling the air with fumes, while ministers debate environmental matters
and
a few yards away cyclists have their bikes disposed of like IRA bombs.
Deborah Moggach has a simple question

The
Freedom of the City
Cycling is, as the philosopher Wittgenstein (a bicycle owner himself)
might have put it,
another way of 'being in the world'. It's an intensely physical form of
transport, and brings into play
nearly all the senses. This makes cycling the ideal way of travelling
in a city like London.Ken Worpole's got the
keys to the city

Love
on a BicycleThe bicycle
has always been with me, its two-wheel theme running through a long and
misspent
life as smoothly as a well-oiled chain. It was not at first an abiding
passion, merely the magic
carpet of a carless age, transporting me to... boys.Eileen Palmer reminisces on old flames and burnished bicycles

Signs
and Wonders in the Heavens
Oh, skies of those days, skies of luminous signals and meteors, covered
by the calculations of
astronomers, copied a thousand times, numbered, marked with the water-marks
of algebra!
With faces blue from the glory of those nights, we wandered through space
pulsating
from the explosions of distant suns, in a sidereal brightness... a human
river overshadowed by the cyclists on their spidery machines. Bruno Schulz writes up a storm

Watch
the Churn
The secret of recovering a sense of place at the level of the individual
is to take
to sitting, standing, walking and cycling so that that you achieve the
intimacy of contact
with the ground that you miss with a car. Try arriving at a lone rail
station in town or country
and sample the sudden silence as the train departs, leaving you on the
platform.
Bear with Simon Baddeley
for a longer set of reflections

Peace
Sign
Still wearing the high-heeled shoes I had worn as I left my own house
in a Pompeiian
flurry two days ago, I bicycled on empty streets past Washington Square,
where a crowd was singing "Kumbaya"Alissa Quart navigates the aftermath of September 11th

Take
it Easy
As you sit there, watching the world without the normal oppressive frames
(door, windshield,
or TV screen), your body settles down. Your back and knees crack with
glee. You start
to breathe instead of pant. Your hair gets combed by the breeze.
Your skin gradually frees itself from the sweaty grip of your T-shirt.
Stuck in the middle with Rob
Story

Fending
for Yourself
The only cyclists who seem to accept me now are the ones who ride on the
sidewalk.
They're the moms riding department store bikes... They always wave vigorously
when they see me, and I can imagine that they're saying to themselves
"Isn't it nice that people like that are still able to get out?"Richard Drdul retires his
plastic shorts

Bike
to Work
"Cycling is basically a solitary activity," a man on a fifteen-speed
Peugeot remarked
to no one in particular "When you ride a bike, you kind of go into a trance."Hendrik Hertzberg
joins the mayor of NYC and friends for a ride

Cycling
in Hell and Loving ItMidday
lunch tempests of young lean girls in summer will kill you. "Don't look
at the girls"
is the first advice the veteran cycle messengers give. The Summer of the
Short Skirt will wrap you round a light pole. Christopher Ketcham
mainlines some adrenaline

Spin
City
There is nothing to mark this tiny splotch of sidewalk in East Meadow,
Long Island.
No marker. No sign. Not so much as an errant scrap of police tape.Michael SmithandCharles Komanoff
examine media bias

The
Social Ideology of the MotorcarUnlike the
vacuum cleaner, the radio, or the bicycle, which retain their use value
when everyone has one,
the car, like a villa by the sea, is only desirable and useful insofar
as the masses don't have one. André Gorz takes apart the car

How
Green was my Green Team
The East Riding of Yorkshire Council had a 'Green Team': a collection
of officers who were supposedly
interested in lessening the environmental impact of the authorities' activities.
Feeling
that encouraging employees to walk and cycle to work might fit in with
the aims of the Green Team I went along to a meeting. Howard Peel offers his Confessions
of a Cycling Officer

Little
Victories
When was the last time you saw a roadie smile, really give a smile that
wasn't actually
a grimace? Of course there is fun to be had, but it seems to be sandwiched
between thick
slices of pain and effort. Why should I go all Catholic about just riding
the downhill?Jo Burt goes climbing

The
£50 Bike I used to
take ridiculous pride in my possessions. After all, did they not demonstrate
my success,
my achievement? But I'm older now and with age comes a kind of wisdom.
I have recovered and
I can show you how to recover too, and you need not send me large cheques.
Although you are always welcome to send me cheques.Mike Adams bucks the law of diminishing returns

Alley
Cat: Of Sickness and SuccessHistory could
just roll right over our heads and forget us all. Young men and women
with years of hard living inked or etched into our skin, with the jeans
and sweaters that we've worn
since we ran away from home, with limited resources and limited opportunities,
we, some of us,
were still striving for glory with the will to be remembered for what
we do well.Travis
Culley and The Immortal Class

Hot
Pursuit
When you race, you feel that that is what life is for, its whole aim and
purpose.
All racing cyclists may be addicted to the opiates that the brain releases
to tamp down
the discomfort of extreme exertion, but more than that they are junkies
for the
subculture of their sport, its secret knowledge and fraternal spirit.Matt Seaton is The Escape
Artist

Safe
The only thing you have from moment to moment is the freedom to experience
your own life
and make your own decisions. It is a freedom you can lose at any moment,
a fragile thing,
but the central ingredient that makes any life enjoyable and satisfying.
De Clarke is pro-choice
on helmets

Bikeman
Bikeman, in one of his myriad incarnations, is a friend of mine. He is
over 30, fashionably hirsute,
works downtown and lives in his own Park Slope brownstone. Until recently
he was a mortal being
who thought not infrequently of his wife, his children and his plumbing
disasters.
Now all that is forgotten. He has fifteen speeds!Behold Owen Edwards

This
Way Just take
a ride through the countryside and see how many cycling signs you see
that point
to nowhere in particular. I mean, they all go somewhere, but because we're
never allowed
to know where, the signs are of strictly limited use.
Where's Woodland?

Bicycle
Brains
It's interesting that the expression isn't you never forget how to row
a boat or drive a car.
Not that we're necessarily more likely to forget how to do those things,
but the bicycle is a machine
that interfaces so well with its human software that it serves as the
perfect example
of how the brain adapts to new platforms. Mark Roland on
how two become one

Going
Mobile
For too long, I and my kind have kept our preferences in the dark, and
in this bright, kind, inclusive,
touchy-feely new universe, it would be hypocritical of me to hide it from
you any more.Boris Johnson is
accused of careless talk

Elsewhere
I was transfixed by the news. Not even a half-hour before, my mind, just
like the trucker's,
had been elsewhere. We both had endured accidents. Yet the trucker had
killed three
people while I had a mere scrape on my hand and a broken bike reflector.
The only difference had been the firepower of our weapons.Eli Knapp gets caught between
the moon and Goleta Beach

Urban
Cycling
Take five years of higher education, 20 years of swimming upstream and
30 years
of thinking how a person can leave their mark in the world: it all comes
together
and makes sense when you decide to ride.
Tim Parr on why bicycles are cool

Race
Riot
These precious places grab their foothold on the planet in a timescale
where the life of a
two-wheeled transient doesn't feature as the tiniest blip. Make your presence
momentary,
harmless, as beautiful and magical as the trail itself: a flash of mechanical
rainbow,
so brief that you may or may not have ever been there at all.
Unhappy trails for Jenn
Hopkins

Horribly,
Britishly, Wrong
The problem is not the moving traffic but the stationary stuff, plonked
in the middle
of cycle paths, red routes, bus lanes, and other traffic-management schemes
complete with
big signs saying, apparently, 'Do not, under any circumstances, even think
of parking here,
or you will completely and utterly get away with it.'
Euan Ferguson finds the ox in Oxford Circus

How
to be Alone
We don't count. We're not a car. We're not a truck. We're not the blue
van from Publisher's
Clearing House, come to give them a big check and balloons. We don't exist,
and that's ok.
People may look up and see me, but then they automatically go right back
to whatever
they were doing. As a result, I can cruise through any neighborhood,
rich or poor, and cause hardly a ripple in my passing. Chip Haynes is the invisible
man

Instant
Personality
Sculptors sometimes say that they can see the finished form inside the
original
stone block. It's there, you just can't see it yet. In the same way, thousands
upon
thousands of cheap, quality hack bikes are out there right now;
they're just spread out a bit at the moment. Dan Joyce meets Heath
Robinson

Ah,
Is This Not Happiness?
It's a cold, frosty night in January around 6 pm. Orion is rising in the
eastern sky as I
wheel out my pushbike from the garage and put a bottle of orange squash
in the cage.
I'm snugged up against the wintry chill in my Gore-Tex jacket, tights
and gloves.Simon Mason tunes in
bliss

Hermes
It turns out that when it comes to bike messengers, "Who are these people?"
is actually not the most important question to be asking. The most important
question is: Who are you, and where are you looking from? Eli Sanders: courier

The
Texture of the Roads
In the mountains, where the winter cold bites into the tar, and the summer
heat resoftens it,
the road's texture is rough and dark: a Beluga that livens you up with
tiny vibrations,
stiffening your perineum and, little by little, making your hands tingle
through the gloves.A new feel in the
ride for Paul Fournel

MTB
RAH RAH RAHHeinlein
offered gauntletted spacesuits, prismatic and gyroscopic navigation systems,
electrical circuits embedded in protective lucite -- almost-material goods,
things you could
imagine hefting in your hand, tainted with the unmistakeable hydrocarbon
whiff of the real.
And there were bicycles. Will Meister on
a SF master

Traffic
Zoology
While much has been written about manipulating traffic
waves, the dynamics
of traffic jams and phase-transitions in
traffic density, very little time has been devoted to
the observation and cataloguing of persistent multi-car zoomorphia.Matthew Frederick Davis
Hemming, ethologist

Kraftwerk
and the Ultimate Man-Machine
“When your bike functions best, you don’t hear it –
it’s silent, there’s no cracking,
just shhhh – you’re gliding. It’s the same when you’re
in good shape and your in form
and you’re riding your bike, you hear nothing – maybe just
a little bit of breath.” Jack Thurston
plays the Beach Boys from Düsseldorf

Dancing
on the Pedals
All of the fears have been realized / the Col du Galibier is being swept
/
by what the French describe as a veritable tempest, /
with winds blowing up to seventy miles / per hour /
the riders cannot possibly / cross over the mountainDoug Donaldson
rediscovers the found poetry of Phil Liggett

The
Virtue of SelfishnessIf you don’t
care about me, I don’t care.
But start caring about yourself – and then we might have a deal.Fi Glover,
Ayn Rand, and a careless trucker